Out of sight, out of mind : what companies still forget when transitioning to a circular economy
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2024
- Source
- Ghent University Institutional Archive
- Keywords
- Language
- English
- License
- Green
- External links
Abstract
Companies sometimes apply circular strategies envisioning an ideal scenario (Bocken et al., 2023; Dembek et al., 2023). While reality is out of control, context dependent, evolutionary (Ostuzzi, 2017). This creates a gap between what has been designed (ideal) and what really happens (reality). This study aims to find blind spots in specific companies’ cases concerning the real product “dynamics”, “after gate”. What information is out of sight, leading to overlooked sustainability impacts? Three companies, designing and/or producing physical products in Flanders have been involved in a two-day design workshop. Researchers observed and analyzed the resulting outcomes of the observative stage of one of these companies to uncover missing information. The method is inspired by the annotated portfolio technique (Sauerwein, Bakker and Balkenende, 2018). This study confirms that companies lack awareness of what happens “after gate” In this study, we observed a blind spot that product “dynamics” (products gradual change, contextual changes, and changes in user behavior) are not mapped out, while it is in the nature of products to be changing (Ostuzzi, 2017). Not observing the change consequently means overlooking the sustainability impact of these “dynamics” . Future studies should aim at further discovering the blind spots companies might have on the “after gate” and real lives of their products, and therefore of the impacts created. Further research could investigate how designers can anticipate the change in product, context, and stakeholder within the circular economy, by for example designing open-ended (Ostuzzi, 2017).
